Does raising the minimum wage reduce poverty?

[AntonToo]

I thought we weren’t supposed to pay attention to the CBO? Oh wait, that was just in the particular case of evaluating the cost of the Build Back Better plan.

Lemmings

You thought wrong. I've never said that. CBO produces respectable, down-the-middle estimates.

You want to talk to me? You talk to me, not some imaginary lefties in your head.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

If the answer is no, and I'm pretty sure it is, then why have a minimum wage at all? If you raise the minimum wage to $15 all you're doing is ensuring that any job worth less than that won't exist legally, and that means unskilled people will have less job opportunities and less possibilities for expanding their value in the market. Grown people should not be inhibited by the government when it comes to their ability to negotiate their own labor. It's immoral, patronizing and it doesn't actually achieve its intended effect. It does ensure less jobs and less business opportunities though.

The minimum wage is well-intentioned, and our economy can survive despite it, but all it really does is limit the people that are worth the least. The impact a $15/hr minimum wage would have on the job market, particularly in more rural states, is no doubt massive. I consider myself left wing. I support a lot of left wing ideas. This is not one of them though. There shouldn't be a minimum wage. It's not actually helping poor people. I think it's bad for everybody.

The market has demonstrated pretty well that we don't need a state mandated minimum wage. There is hardly anybody who actually makes the minimum wage.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Does Warren Buffet making another billion in dividends reduce poverty? not in the least.

Which is related to the minimum wage how?

Not in the least.

 

[AntonToo]

Fine, 2%. It's three times that now.

you average it out with last year and it's not as bad as it seems.

Point about inflation existing with or without minimum wage remains.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

you average it out with last year and it's not as bad as it seems.

Point about inflation existing with or without minimum wage remains.

Only because of the labor shortage. Without the shortage, a $15.00 MW would have had the same effect.

 

[Maxdeath]

Should what's too low really be the governments decision?

Should we allow ten year olds to work in industry jobs? Should we allow them to work on commercial fishing boats? Should we allow someone to pay a dollar a day for picking apples or two dollars an hour for making someone’s coffee?
Sometimes we do need government to step in.

 

[Maxdeath]

Nah, I just understand math a lot better than you do, and know for a fact that it isn't wages driving up prices, wages always lag inflation, not lead it. In fact wages have lagged inflation by so much that now the hacks have gullible people believing $20 an hour is some drastic amount, mostly people who themselves would feel embarrassed at barely making minimum wage now and need to feel 'Special' because they're making more than some person making $10 an hour. I realize you feel embarrassed by what minimum wages would be if properly adjusted for inflation, because that reality would make many here look like true dumbasses for working so cheap.

Do you really believe that any company is going to pay someone $15.00 an hour compared with paying $9.50 an hour and not raise prices to cover the difference? Do you think they are making that big of a profit margin?
if you believe those kinds of things then you do not understand mathematics as you claim.

 

[Maxdeath]

Where did you hear that bullshit?

To listen to that tripe real wage growth is supposedly not possible

There are true reasons to oppose all or certain levels of minimum wage, but it's pure myth that increasing minimum wage could be fully eroded by the resulting inflationary effects. Labor is only a fraction of the total business costs.

So you actually believe that companies work on such a high profit margin that they can make up a large wage increase without increasing prices?
Also you are failing to take into account that things like Social Security, Unemployment compensation, Medicare payments need to be increased as wages go up.
If you think someone making $3.00 or more then minimum wage are going to sit back and allow themselves to relegated to minimum wage then you do not understand human nature. Everyone will feel they need to make more because thy will feel that since they made more before it was raised then they should be making that much more over the new minimum wage.
Yes raising prices does lag. Because not everyone raises prices at once. But prices do catch up. The problem is that those making minimum wage will see a short term increase in spending limits. But it is only temporary. Once that vanishes then what? Raise it again. Watch it become eroded, increase again? When do we say stop? $100.00 an hour minimum wage? $500.00?

 

[AntonToo]

Only because of the labor shortage. Without the shortage, a $15.00 MW would have had the same effect.

Did we have shortage of labor 2010-2019?

 

[WEATHER53]

It makes Far More Valuable work look less so and libbies love that.

 

[Grumblenuts]

Does Warren Buffet making another billion in dividends reduce poverty? not in the least.

Which is related to the minimum wage how?

Not in the least.

Like Ray, probably never met a billionaire you wouldn't jump though hoops to apologize for.

You are kidding yourself if you think any CEO or management is going to allow their pay to be cut due to increased production costs. It's never happened in the past and won't in the future. All losses get passed down to the consumer and we pay them as we always have. Nobody on top will lose one dime.

Or like Ray, never met a poor person you wouldn't leap to blame for their own poverty.

Again, poverty is a choice, not an infliction by the government or society. YOU choose to be poor and nobody else.

Living in America! Defeatism takes a magic carpet ride ~~~

Smokestack, fatback, many miles of railroad track.
All-night radio keep on runnin' through your rock'n' roll soul.
All-night diners keep you awake
on a black coffee and a hard roll.
you might have to walk a fine line
you might take a hard line
But everybody's workin' overtime.
Living in America, eye to eye, station to station

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Or like Ray, never met a poor person you wouldn't leap to blame for their own poverty.

If they're not responsible for their own poverty, who is?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Did we have shortage of labor 2010-2019?

No we didn't. Do you have a point here or something?

 

[Dragonlady]

The supply chain problem took place when Dementia and the commies decided to pay people to stay home instead of work. If Trump were still in charge, that never would have happened and we would have no supply chain problem today because he never would have signed that bill. The freebies went from February through September of this year, and apparently there are people who saved enough where there is still no hurry to return to work. It has nothing to do with demand.

You are kidding yourself if you think any CEO or management is going to allow their pay to be cut due to increased production costs. It's never happened in the past and won't in the future. All losses get passed down to the consumer and we pay them as we always have. Nobody on top will lose one dime. So as we pay "living wages" (whatever the fuck that is) those costs get passed onto us and that's why we have inflation rates not seen in 30 years.

What did you expect people to do with 2000 people dying every day, and hospitals having to go to crisis protocols to decide who lives and who dies? Your medical system collapsed. Not only did thousands of hospital workers die or get sick, tens of thousands more, left the profession. You're going to have shortages of doctors and nurses for generations to come. Ditto other front line workers.

Furthermore, a vast swath of the economy was able to work remotely from home, and they received pretty much full wages throughout the pandemic, as did retirees and those on fixed incomes. With restaurants only open to take out, people stayed home, learned to cook, and used computers to shop when they could. Home owners did home repairs and renovations causing the price of lumber to shoot into the stratosphere, while gasoline was almost free since nobody was going anywhere.

Executive income is going to be completely rethought by the shareholders. Nobody is worth $20 million per year to run a burger chain.

This level of pay inequity only happens in the USA. Other countries don't give 80% of the income to the shareholders because other countries require corporations to pay a living wage, and provide universal, taxpayer funded health care for all.

Imagine that. Walmart in Canada pays $15 per hour and pays taxes to provide healthcare for all. Not only that but Walmart doesn't get to deny women abortions because they don't like abortions. Even the Catholic Church pays taxes for their employees to have birth control and abortions. It's up to the person what is covered, not their employer/.

Our workers don't get food stamps, or earned income credits. Low wage workers do get child tax credits. carbon tax rebates, and VAT rebates, but that's all done through Revenue Canada. Single seniors have a guaranteed income of $19,000 per year. All triggered by their income tax filings.

 

[Dragonlady]

If they're not responsible for their own poverty, who is?

The economic system that pays them $7.50 per hour to work, and provides them with a third rate education because they live in a poor neighbourhood.

ONLY IN AMERICA TO DO EITHER OF THESE THINGS HAPPEN.

 

[WEATHER53]

Like Ray, probably never met a billionaire you wouldn't jump though hoops to apologize for.

Or like Ray, never met a poor person you wouldn't leap to blame for their own poverty.

Living in America! Defeatism takes a magic carpet ride ~~~

90% of people in poverty are directly contributory and causal of their plight
10% are truely victim of a series of circumstances utterly beyond their control to avoid and impossible to escape from without help. We do help them and want to continue to do so mostly for about one year, then the necessary boost helping hand is over as the creation of a permanent life style of dependence is detrimental to all except moochers.
The 90% that bitch and moan while doing nothing that a person with a brain should do we will not be Libby guilt tripped into subsidizing
What I described is the historical true American blueprint for success for All and as thinking is returning so will better outcomes for All.

 

[hadit]

If you don't like minimum wage then work for less than and see if that gets you out of poverty.

People do exactly that. It's called being an apprentice to learn a valuable job skill.

 

[hadit]

Anyone who thinks like you should go on minimum wage for a year before they answer your question.

A year is about the longest anyone should ever expect to be at MW.

 

[Grumblenuts]

If you don't like minimum wage then work for less than and see if that gets you out of poverty.

People do exactly that. It's called being an apprentice to learn a valuable job skill.

Wrong. Apprenticeships pay at least minimum wage, silly. Sane, self-respecting people wouldn't consider taking those positions otherwise. Real workers demand real pay and real employers want real workers. One tends to get what they pay for.

 

[Anomalism]

Should we allow ten year olds to work in industry jobs? Should we allow them to work on commercial fishing boats? Should we allow someone to pay a dollar a day for picking apples or two dollars an hour for making someone’s coffee?
Sometimes we do need government to step in.

Sometimes yes. We don't need a minimum wage though.